The present invention is directed toward the fastener art and, more particularly, to a fastener of the type generally referred to as a quarter-turn fastener.
Quarter-turn fasteners are widely used to releasably connect panels and other components to an associated support panel or similar structure. The fasteners are designed such that, as their name implies, they can be shifted from an engaged or locked position to a release position by a simple 90.degree. rotation about their longitudinal axis.
While many designs of such fasteners have been proposed in the prior art, the prior designs generally suffer from disadvantages which limit their usefulness. For example, many of the designs require two or more separate components which, of course, results in increasing their cost and complicating their installation. In addition, also for example, those prior quarter-turn fasteners which are single component designs are severely limited in their ability to function with differing panel or support structure thicknesses. That is, the fasteners function properly only when the total thickness of the panel and the support structure is in a very limited range. In fact, with some of the designs not only does the total thickness of the panel and support structure need to be held to close tolerances, but the relative thicknesses of each of the two components must remain constant. Consequently, each change in the total thickness and/or the relative thicknesses of the components being joined requires a different size fastener.